The history of Islam is a history of military conquest. (Also see here, here, here, and here.)

And here are a few of many suras in the Koran that command Muslims to terrorize and kill non-Muslims.

• Koran 47:4. So when you meet those who disbelieve, strike [their] necks until, when you have inflicted slaughter upon them, then secure their bonds, and either [confer] favor afterwards or ransom [them] until the war lays down its burdens.
• Koran 9:5. So when the sacred months have passed away, then slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captive and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush, then if they repent and keep up prayer and pay the poor-rate, leave their way free to them.”
• Koran 9:29. Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.
• Koran 9:123. O you who believe! fight those of the unbelievers who are near to you and let them find in you hardness.
• Koran 61:4. Surely Allah loves those who fight in His way.
• Koran 8:12. I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them.

And these are a few quotations from the Hadith that carry the same message:

• Bukhari 52:256.  The Prophet… was asked whether it was permissible to attack the pagan warriors at night with the probability of exposing their women and children to danger. The Prophet replied, “They are from them.” [ie. Yes.]
• Muslim 1:33. The Messenger of Allah said, “I have been commanded to fight against people till they testify that there is no god but Allah, that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.”
• Bukhari 8:387. Allah’s Apostle said, “I have been ordered to fight the people till they say: ‘None has the right to be worshipped but Allah’.  And if they say so, pray like our prayers, face our Qibla and slaughter as we slaughter, then their blood and property will be sacred to us and we will not interfere with them except legally.”
• Muslim 1:30. The Messenger of Allah said: “I have been commanded to fight against people so long as they do not declare that there is no god but Allah.”
• Tabari 9:69. Killing Unbelievers is a small matter to us.
• Ibn Ishaq/Hisham 992. Fight everyone in the way of Allah and kill those who disbelieve in Allah.

But the US Homeland Security Secretary, Jeh Johnson, insists that “the very essence of the Islamic faith is peace”.

He said so to a Muslim audience when he rushed to a mosque to comfort and reassure them after Muslims carried out the massacre of non-Muslims at San Bernardino, California. 

Bridget Johnson writes at PJ Media:

In a Monday visit to a Northern Virginia mosque, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson declared “anyone who does not understand” that Muslims want peace “does not understand Islam”.

Johnson dropped in on at the All Dulles Area Muslim Society in Sterling, Va., the day after President Obama said Americans have a responsibility to respect their Muslim neighbors.

Has he ever said that Muslims have a responsibility to respect their non-Muslim American neighbors?

Johnson said …

In responding to this new environment, we must not vilify American Muslims. We must not throw a net of suspicion over American Muslims and an entire religion. We must not force American Muslims to run and hide, and retreat to the shadows. This would be counter to our homeland security efforts, and it is un-American. Now, more than ever, is the time to work together, to protect and defend our communities, our families, and our homeland. … The overwhelming, overwhelming majority of American Muslims, and Muslims worldwide, are men, women and children of peace, who seek to live their lives in peace, and want nothing to do with terrorism. Anyone who does not understand this does not understand Islam. The very essence of the Islamic faith is peace. The standard greeting As-salamu alaykum is ‘peace be upon you.'”

Johnson promised the imam that he would “continue to speak out against the discrimination, vilification and isolation that American Muslims face in these challenging times.”

“Now, I have an ask,” he continued. “It is an ask of the people in this room and all Muslims across this country: Terrorist organizations overseas have targeted your communities. They seek to pull your youth into the pit of violent extremism. Help us to help you stop this.”

He told the Muslim audience that “if you see someone turning toward violence, say something.”

“Help us to help you amplify your message about the true meaning of Islam, as a religion of peace,” Johnson said. “…Encourage your youth that, if they see someone attracted to ISIL’s message, they should tell them there is a better way to change the world without violence.”

“Most of all: do not become bitter. Do not lose faith. Have faith in this country.”

The Homeland Security secretary added that “over and over again, in the life of this nation, there have been classes of people who, by virtue of their race, religion or nationality, exist on the margins of society, who are the object of prejudice, scorn and suspicion, and seek to win acceptance.”

“It is also the tradition of this great Nation that, ultimately, those who once existed on the margins of society become part of the fabric of our society,” said Johnson, noting that his grandfather in 1949 “was called upon to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee, to deny he was a member of the Communist Party and defend the patriotism of African Americans.”

“Today his grandson is responsible for the homeland security of this entire nation.”

Yup. So he is. But do not become bitter.

And whom did Obama pick to head the CIA? John Brennan, who thinks that Islam is a good and beautiful religion:

Neither Jeh Johnson nor John Brennan seem to know anything about the subjugation of women in Islam by veiling them, enslaving them, mutilating them, beating them, “honor” killing them, and stoning them to death if they are raped. Or about its execution of gays and apostates. Or about its amputating hands and feet. Or about its ideology of conquest and subjection of non-Muslims.

Or if they do, it doesn’t apparently trouble them in the least. In no way does all that, for them, detract from Islam’s peacefulness, goodness, and beauty.

But do not become bitter.

Stuart Varney of Fox News invites Lt. Col. Ralph Peters to say what he thought of President Obama’s speech about what he will do to “destroy” ISIS (IS/ISIL).

Peters says what he thought, eloquently, angrily, and cogently. Then Varney rebukes him for using language unacceptable to “the program”.

But we suspect the rebuke was simply pro forma. The comments by Ralph Peters remain to be heard.

And they are good to hear.

Obama and Democrats will not believe it. Because if facts don’t support their agenda, they are impervious to them.

But the case can be made: the more guns there are in the hands of citizens, the fewer the victims of gun murder. 

This telling chart comes from the American Enterprise Institute (via PowerLine), where its validity and implications are discussed.

Why is the Republican majority in Congress not impeaching Obama?

Is it because they fear being called racist?

That would be a footling excuse.

Here’s the enemy at work:

And here is our Facebook summary of an article in the Daily Wire on another whopper being spun by Muslims in the US and endorsed by the Attorney General.

She promises Muslims that she will prosecute free speech to protect their murderous ideology from criticism.

This makes us burn with anger – you too?

The day after the horrific shooting spree by a Muslim man and his wife in San Bernardino, California, Attorney General Loretta Lynch pledged to a group of Muslim activists that she would take aggressive action against anyone who used “anti-Muslim rhetoric” that “edges toward violence”. Speaking to the audience at the Muslim Advocate’s 10th anniversary dinner Thursday, Lynch said her “greatest fear” is the “incredibly disturbing rise of anti-Muslim rhetoric” in America. Assuring the pro-Muslim group that “we stand with you”, Lynch said she would use her Justice Department to protect Muslims from “violence” and discrimination.

This is also a summary from our Facebook page – an angry answer to the Attorney General:

A former US congressman urged Attorney General Loretta Lynch to arrest him after she warned on Thursday that her office would take a more aggressive approach to those who use “anti-Muslim rhetoric” that “edges toward violence”. “I think Islam has a real freaking problem, alright?” former Illinois Rep. Joe Walsh said in a video posted to his Facebook page. “There is a cancer in Islam, and if they’re not going to learn to assimilate, I don’t want them in this country. You got a problem, Loretta Lynch, with me saying that? Then throw me in jail.” Walsh, a conservative talk show host who served in Congress from 2011 to 2013, argued. “I think Islam is evil. I think Islam has a huge problem. I think most Muslims around the world are terrorists, support terrorism and/or support Sharia Law not compatible with American values. I don’t want them here. Any Muslim that is a terrorist or supports terrorism should be killed. If ‘moderate’ Muslims don’t speak out against terrorism, they are our enemy and we should call them out and kick them out of this country. If that is ‘anti-Muslim rhetoric’ that ‘edges toward violence’, go ahead and prosecute me. I dare you.”

We share his anger.

There is no “backlash” against Muslims. Muslims do not need to be told that the government will protect them. The American people need to be told that their government will protect them from Islam.

One of the earliest pieces of information we were given about the San Bernardino massacre, was that there had been “an argument” between the man who was later named as the killer and one other. Now we know the name of the other, and what the argument was about.*

Nicholas Thalasinos said to Syed Farook that Islam was not a peaceful religion. Syed Farook insisted that it was.

To win his argument, Farook killed Thalasinos and 13 others. (All the names can be found here.)

We quote from an article at the Jewish Press, by Lori Lowenthal Marcus:

A strongly pro-Israel, anti-Islamic, politically conservative Evangelical Christian* was one of the victims of the mass murder in San Bernardino. Not only that, but the man posted on social media the day before the attack that he had recently received threats, including a death threat.

How do we know this?

Information about the victims is finally being released.

By 3:30 p.m. local time on Thursday, Dec. 3, the families of all fourteen of the deceased victims of Wednesday’s mass shooting in San Bernardino, California had been notified. Once that was completed, the San Bernardino County Coroner then released the names, ages, last residence and date of birth for each victim.

The youngest victim was 26 years old, the oldest was 60.

Once information began to seep out, one was (or at least some of of us were) immediately struck by details about one of the victims, 52 year old Nicholas Thalasinos.

Thalasinos is a member of a messianic church and is strongly pro-Israel. His Facebook page is filled with positive postings about Israel … He was also a strong political conservative. ..

But here’s the kicker: The USA Today report, which buried this detail 31 paragraphs down in a 54 paragraph story about some of the victims, on Tuesday, the day before the massacre, Thalasinos posted on social media that he had received threats in recent days, including one stating he “will die”. 

An Associated Press report revealed that a co-worker said that Thalasinos and Farook had argued recently about religion, and Thalasinos complained to her that Farook “doesn’t agree that Islam is not a peaceful religion”. …

Investigation into the attack now reveals that the two who shot to death those 14 people and wounded another 21, Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, 27, had been in contact with suspected terrorists both in the United States and abroad. Thousands of rounds of ammunition and fifteen pipe bombs were recovered by the investigating authorities.

By Thursday afternoon the investigation was turned over to the FBI and was being treated as a counterterrorism investigation.

It could be said that the same argument has, in its essence, prompted 27,375 fatal attacks by Muslim terrorists according to today’s tally  by The Religion of Peace, reflected continuously in our margin.

Outside of the San Bernardino context, it is not an argument between Christians and Jews on the one side and Muslims on the other; it is an argument between Muhammad’s ideologues of conquest and everyone else.    

* There was, it emerges, no quarrel between Syed Farook and Nicholas Thalasinos on the day of the massacre itself.

** Update on Nicholas Thalasinos. He belonged to a church that believes Jesus was/is the Messiah, so he is describable as both Christian and Jewish. The church is called the Shiloh Messianic Congregation Church of Crestline, California.

The media, including Fox News, and the police, the president, and all Democrats, are having difficulty finding a motive behind the massacre of San Bernardino, carried out yesterday by a Muslim man and a Muslim woman.

Daring commentators go so far as to say that the killing might have been Islamic terrorism, acts of which, they recall, have been carried out from time to time in America and elsewhere; or it might have been workplace violence – which they’d much prefer it to be.

We are happy to come to their aid and resolve the dilemma.

For jihadis, they are the same thing.

Islamic lore has it that the whole non-Muslim world is the Dar-al-Harb, the Place of War. And that whole vast wicked region is their workplace.

So – you see – by killing non-Muslims, Muslims are performing acts of workplace violence in order to terrorize the infidel. And that is not wrong, it is the work they are instructed to do by no less a boss than Allah himself.  

We are all aware that workplace violence is an everyday occurrence. It’s as American as apple pie. Why make a fuss about it?

When you should be worrying about global warming.

A passionate supporter of Hamas and fierce hater of Israel, Robert Malley, has been appointed by Obama to be his chief adviser on policy towards ISIS.

He is of Syrian descent. His Egyptian-born father, an ardent Stalinist, was expelled from France for nefarious political activity.

J. E. Dyer writes at Liberty Unyielding:

The POTUS-in-Chief is taking it to the “Islamic State” in Paris this week, delivering blow after blow with his climate-summit rhetoric …

Has a bloodthirsty, Islamofascist guerrilla-terrorist movement ever been driven so thoroughly onto the ropes?  You decide.

But Obama’s not stopping there. His administration announced today that it’s appointing a new senior advisor to the president on ISIS. …

Rob Malley [was] the foreign affairs activist – formerly a regional director with the International Crisis Group – who was abruptly dropped from the Obama campaign organization in 2008 when his contacts with the terrorist group Hamas were revealed by British media.

Malley is a fan of talking with terrorists …

His father, a founder of the Egyptian Communist Party who had the distinction of being expelled from exile in France for his communist activities in the 1970s, nursed a long association with Yassir Arafat, among other ideological radicals of the time.

Alex Safian put it this way in his CAMERA profile of [Rob] Malley in 2008:

The world in which Robert Malley grew up was one in which Yasir Arafat, Fidel Castro, Leonid Brezhnev and Todor Zhivkov [Communist dictator of Bulgaria 1954-1989] were heroes, any American leader – even Jimmy Carter! – was villainous, and Israeli leaders were veritable demons.

Malley was at Harvard Law School when Obama was, and shares the same worldview. Malley’s ridiculous unsuitability for a major post with a mainline party candidate was obvious in 2008 – which is certainly an interesting point, since his background and views are so in sync with Obama’s.

But a few years later, after the 2012 election, Malley was quietly put on the National Security Council, as senior director for Iran, Iraq, Syria, and the Gulf States.  Early in 2015, Malley was moved up to the NSC position of Middle East Coordinator, a promotion that sparked serious concern from many observers.

In his new role at the NSC, Malley put his stamp on the negotiations with Iran in 2015.  (In fact, we are advised that he participated in the celebratory toast, with a bottle of fine Madeira donated from Portugal, enjoyed by lead negotiators John Kerry and Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz. Take that, ISIS!)

So, basically, Malley has been closely embedded, at the apex of influence, in the great security policy catastrophes of the Obama administration involving Syria, Iraq, and Iran.  Just take a moment and think how that’s been going for us on his watch – including the feature of ISIS’s meteoric rise during this period.

Malley favors talking to terrorists, and has urged the world to do just that with the homicidal baby-killers of Hamas.  As a bonus, he made contacts with Hamas himself, something that you would still be under hostile surveillance for by U.S. agencies, if you had done it.

And now he’s going to be Obama’s top advisor on ISIS.  Yay!

A correspondent suggested to me earlier today that it would be a waste of time for Malley to persuade Obama to cooperate with Iran and Hamas against ISIS, because we’re already doing that.

But why think small?  Mark my words.  Robert Malley’s distinctive approach will be cooperating with ISIS.  Hey, terrorists have grievances, and what they really need is an invitation to sit down and talk.

It’s the left upper-cut, from out of nowhere.  ISIS will never see it coming.

For more about our man with ISIS, this is from Discover the Networks:

Robert Malley was born in 1963 and lived in France from 1969-80. His mother — a native New Yorker — worked for the United Nations delegation of the National Liberation Front, the leftist, anti-American political party that led the independence movement in Algeria in the 1950s and early ’60s. Robert’s father, the late Simon Malley, was a key figure in the Egyptian Communist Party. The elder Malley was bitterly anti-Israel; a confidante of PLO leaderYasser Arafat; an inveterate critic of “Western imperialism”; a supporter of various leftist revolutionary “liberation movements,” particularly the Palestinian cause; a beneficiary of Soviet funding; and a backer of the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. …

[He attended] Harvard Law School … at the same time as Barack Obama. And in 1991–92, Malley clerked for Supreme Court Justice Byron White.

After his clerkship, Malley became a Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, where hepublished The Call From Algeria: Third Worldism, Revolution, and the Turn to Islam — a book that charts Algeria’s political evolution beginning from the turn of the 20th century.

Malley subsequently served as the U.S. National Security Council’s Director for Democracy, Human Rights, and Humanitarian Affairs from 1994-96; National Security Advisor Sandy Berger’s executive assistant from 1996-98; and President Bill Clinton’s Special Assistant for Arab-Israeli Affairs from 1998-2001. In July 2000 he was a member of the U.S. peace team that participated in the Camp David Summit between Bill Clinton (who brokered the talks), Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat. The talks ended without an agreement.

Since 2001, Malley has written several controversial articles — some co-authored with Hussein Agha, a former advisor to Arafat — blaming Israel and exonerating Arafat for the failure at Camp David. For instance, in a July 2001 op-ed (titled Fictions About the Failure at Camp David) which was published in the New York Times, Malley alleged that Israeli — not Palestinian — inflexibility had caused the previous year’s peace talks to fail.

In an August 9, 2001 piece, Camp David: The Tragedy of Errors, Malley and Agha again dismissed claims that the Camp David talks had failed when “Ehud Barak’s unprecedented offer” was met with “Yasser Arafat’s uncompromising no”. Rather, they wrote that Barak had taken an unnecessarily hard-line approach in negotiating with Arafat. According to the authors, Arafat believed that Barak was intent on “either forcing him to swallow an unconscionable deal or mobilizing the world to isolate and weaken the Palestinians if they refused to yield”.

Malley’s identification of Israel as the cause of the Camp David failure has been widely embraced by Palestinian and Arab activists around the world, by Holocaust deniers … and by anti-Israel publications …

Malley’s account of the Camp David negotiations is entirely inconsistent with the recollections of the key figures who participated in those talks, most notably then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, U.S. President Bill Clinton, and U.S. Ambassador Dennis Ross (Clinton’s Middle East envoy). According to Ross, the peace efforts failed for one reason only: because Arafat wanted them to fail. “[F]undamentally,” said Ross, “I do not believe he [Arafat] can end the conflict. We had one critical clause in this agreement, and that clause was, this is the end of the conflict. Arafat’s whole life has been governed by struggle and a cause … [F]or him to end the conflict is to end himself…. Barak was able to reposition Israel internationally. Israel was seen as having demonstrated unmistakably it wanted peace, and the reason it [peace] wasn’t … achievable was because Arafat wouldn’t accept.”

Ed Lasky [at American Thinker] enumerates and summarizes some additional Malley op-eds condemning Israel, urging the U.S. to disengage somewhat from the Jewish state, and recommending that America reach out to negotiate with its traditional Arab enemies such as Syria, Hamas, Hezbollah, and Muqtada al-Sadr [leader of the Shi’ite Mahdi Army in Iraq] …

Ten examples are given, all demonstrating ardent support for the Syrian tyrant and the terrorist organizations, and intense hostility to Israel.

In February 2004, Malley testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and recommended that the Arab-Israeli “Road Map for Peace” be abandoned because neither side had confidence that the other was bargaining in good faith. As Ed Lasky writes, “[Malley] advocated that a comprehensive settlement plan be imposed on the parties with the backing of the international community, including Arab and Moslem states. He anticipated that Israel would object with ‘cries of unfair treatment’ but counseled the plan be put in place regardless of such objections; he also suggested that waiting for a ‘reliable Palestinian partner’ was unnecessary.”

In July 2006 Malley criticized the U.S. for allegedly remaining “on the sidelines” and being a “no-show” in the overall effort to bring peace to the nations of the Middle East. Exhorting the Bush administration to change its policy of refusing to engage diplomatically with terrorists and their sponsoring states, Malley stated: “Today the U.S. does not talk to Iran, Syria, Hamas, the elected Palestinian government or Hizballah. … The result has been a policy with all the appeal of a moral principle and all the effectiveness of a tired harangue.”

In 2007, Malley became a foreign policy advisor to Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama.

In January 2008, Ed Lasky observed that Malley’s overarching political objectives included “a radical reshaping of decades of American foreign policy and a shredding of the role of morality in the formulation of American policy.” “These policies,” said Lasky, “would strengthen our enemies, empower dictatorships, and harm our allies.”

That same month, one U.S. security official … stated that Malley “has expressed sympathy to Hamas and Hezbollah and [has] offered accounts of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations that don’t jibe with the facts.”

At that time, Malley was the Middle East and North Africa Program Director for theInternational Crisis Group (ICG), which receives funding from the Open Society Institute(whose founder, George Soros, serves on the ICG Board and Executive Committee). …

On May 9, 2008, the Barack Obama presidential campaign was forced to sever its ties with Malley after the latter told the Times of London that he had been in regular contact with Hamas as part of his work for ICG.

But that was what Obama liked about him.

On November 5, 2008, Middle East Newsline reported that Obama “had sent senior foreign-policy advisor Robert Malley to Egypt and Syria over the last few weeks to outline the Democratic candidate’s policy on the Middle East.” The report added that Malley had “relayed a pledge from Obama that the United States would seek to enhance relations with Cairo as well as reconcile with Damascus”.

“The tenor of the messages was that the Obama administration would take into greater account Egyptian and Syrian interests,” said an aide to Malley.

After President Obama’s 2012 re-election, he appointed Malley to serve as his senior advisor for Iraq-Iran-Syria and the Gulf states. Obama pledged, however, that Malley would have no involvement in issues related to Israel and the Palestinians.

On February 18, 2014, it was announced that Malley was formally returning to the White House to serve as a senior director at the National Security Council (NSC), where he would be in charge of managing relations between the United States and its allies in the Persian Gulf. In March 2015, Obama appointed Malley to direct the NSC’s policy in relation to the entire Middle East, including Israel.

With this man carrying out – and no doubt strongly reinforcing – Obama’s will, US policy in the Middle East has resulted in a vast conflagration.

With the same man “fixing” US relations with ISIS, what fresh hell will soon be breaking out?

In my book L: A Novel History, revolution sweeps Louis Zander, a charismatic philosopher of art and politics known as L, into power as a Marxist dictator of England.

It is available in hardback, paperback and kindle editions here.

These are quotations from L: A Novel History illustrating themes of the book which, though set in a fictitious England in the 1980s, are applicable to the United States under President Obama.

1. Analogies to The Occupy Wall Street Movement:

There was no use in protest marches and demonstrations now. For now there was real deprivation, real tyranny, real hunger. And that was precisely what L had promised them. They were no longer rich in many poor things, as once protestors had so angrily complained to governments and authorities. Now they were poor in all things. It was those who had freedom and decried it, pretending they were oppressed; those who had material plenty and despised it, pretending they were poor; those who thus secreted a worm in their own hearts, and so at the heart of civilization – envy: the amazing unforeseen and unforeseeable envy, by the free and comfortable, of the unfree and wretched of the earth: it was these self-deceiving, would-be lovers of mankind … the affluent children who squatted in the communes and protested against freedom calling it “repressive tolerance”, and those they elected … who were caught in the trap of their own lies, and brought an end to liberty in the name of liberation; an end to plenty in the name of humanitarianism; and an end to the impersonality of the law before which all were equal, and the impersonality of the market in which all were equal, and created legal discrimination and class elitism, in the name of equality.

2. Dependency on the state:

The people had become unaccustomed to self-reliance. They did not after all want a government that would leave them to do the best they could for themselves, and only remove obstacles and restrictions. They wanted a government with paternal responsibilities: to house the citizens, educate them, inoculate them against diseases, cure them when they were ill, keep them warm, tell them to fasten their safety-harnesses in their cars, warn them against smoking tobacco, “counsel” them when they quarreled with their spouses or beat their children or drank too much … and even spend as much of their money as possible on what government considered good for them rather than let them spend it themselves! If the educated and well-off did not need all this for themselves, they believed that “the vast majority of the people of this country” did need it. … The tragedy of Britain was that a self-reliant, self-disciplined, industrious people who had valued freedom, justice, goodwill, commonsense, and had grown strong and prospered because they had the character to embrace those values, had been turned into dependants, dissatisfied and envious, demanding that the state provide what they were no longer willing to provide for themselves.

L wrote: “I look towards a time when none shall have peace, when all feel insecure, and can look only to the Party, manifestly whimsical, for any reward and any punishment, without any reason to expect justice. For there and there only authority will reside, and it will be total and incomprehensible. No aspect of their lives will be too big or too small for the Party to deal with. It will reach into the heart and mind of every man, and his person, his life, will belong not to him but to the Party. The Party will hold the monopoly of life and death. Whatever anyone has will be dispensed to him by the Party, whether it is a material thing, like food and drink, or dignity, self-respect, his mate, the company of his own children. And there will be no escape. For the power of the Party must be planetary. That is why there can be no refuge for individualism; why anyone who expresses thoughts the Party has not allowed him, or who even thinks them to himself, must be stopped.”

3. Redistribution:

L wrote: “You and I know perfectly well that a redistribution of wealth does not make everybody wealthy. In fact, it makes everybody poor.”

4. Social justice:

Increasingly it was the case that the victims of crime were less the object of concern than were the criminals who were excused on the grounds that they were the “real victims” of something called “social injustice”. Tax-payers’ money was spent lavishly on providing them with “therapy”, shelter, comfort, and rehabilitation.

5. Central planning:

The oligarchs occupied themselves with the laborious business of trying “to plan society”. Laws, rules and regulations proliferated, all emanating from the Council of Ministers. Local government was “suspended” when the Council took its “emergency powers”. Administrators were appointed in their stead: Party officials with unlimited powers over persons and property in their districts.

6. Inflation:

“It is in our interest to boost inflation … the unions which have power in the state-monopolized vital services – electricity and gas, mining, transport, shipping, the health service – must use it to keep public expenditure high. Easy enough, since members are unlikely to object to using their collective power to get wages as high as the union can squeeze out of the government for them … The more public money paid out to failing industries the better for us … High unemployment is in our long-term interest, but it is not to our short-term advantage. … Workers are less likely to strike, bring private firms to bankruptcy and generally disrupt the economy if they have real reason to fear the loss of jobs through employment reduction or closure of a business. … There is also the extreme danger that they will start selling their services privately for payment they do not declare – in other words the free ‘black’ economy might gain in strength, and far too many rediscover the personal advantages of self-employment.”

L knew that continuous inflation of the value of money was inimical not only to prosperity, but to security and hopes for the future. He knew that the most responsible, the most self-reliant, the most thrifty, would be the most cheated, because to save money was to lose money. He knew that as money bought less, demands for higher wages would be made more frequently and more exorbitantly; and that those demands could only be met by the printing of ever more paper money, worth ever less and less. And as the Conservative government tried to bring down inflation, tried to make the country live within its means, produce more to earn more real money, L’s legions howled against their efforts. .L-ite economists urged that the government print more money. Their recommendations were given wide and persistent publicity by the BBC, independent television and radio, and most – though not quite all – of the national daily newspapers.

7.  The politics of envy:

Private ownership of land could be ended forever; private education could be made illegal; private medicine entirely abolished; all the known needs of the underprivileged supplied in perfect measure, the poor made collectively rich, and – best of all – the rich made poor.

8. Freedom as a burden:

The Left feared: “The Conservatives will impose freedom on everybody, even those least able to bear it.”

9. Judging according to empathy rather than evidence:

What judges were expected to do was “manifest heart”. The important thing in what had once been called a criminal case was to “arrive at an understanding of the quality of the man” they were judging.

10. Back to the simple life:

[The citizen’s] experience of the revolution was of the decay of everything. He was poor. He was cold. Quite soon he was worse fed that he had ever imagined would be possible in England. Soon the scope of his activities became severely curtailed, and life became monotonous in its misery, unless it was suddenly made appalling and agonizing for this or that individual.

L wrote that they must feel not just cold and hunger, but terror, loneliness, despair. Only then will they understand that the Party is their savior, and that it alone can redeem them from their most terrible spiritual torment – isolation. They will give up their little selfish desires, the pathetic shallow satisfactions they have been deceived into imagining are their real needs. They will begin to understand their role in history. They will thank the power that whips them with tears in their eyes, the mastering Party, giver of bread and purposes.

11. Making the country ungovernable – on the lines of the Cloward-Piven strategy:

The assault on the “commanding heights of power” was to be done by the disruption of civil order, the stirring up of violence in the streets, to the point of serious insurrection and even civil war if possible. Hence the importance of the emotional issue of race. The idea was that liberal democratic government was to be seen not to work. Then an extreme left-dominated Party would take extraordinary powers to restore order.

12. “We all belong to the government” – as per the 2012 Democratic National Convention:

“Everyone will have the pleasure of knowing that he is being used. That what he does is what he must do. That therefore he is necessary, and has purpose. He will belong to the state and the state to him. He will be attached to the state as a babe to its mother’s breast.”

“The state must put them in houses, bring them to school, tempt them with pensions, lure them with kindness. When all have been received inside the shelter of the state, then they will be redeemable. What a harvest will then be promised of men and women for the new age, the third millennium and beyond. But the process of redemption will not be as easy as the gathering-in. They have yet to learn that beyond their material needs there are others, which they have first to discover and then to understand and then to satisfy before they are fit for the absolute community of the human spirit wherein no individual shall have an existence outside of the community, and each will joyfully give up his life at any moment for the preservation of the Greater Life of Universal Man.”

L: A Novel History may turn out to be prophetic if the new leader of the British Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, comes to power. 

Jillian Becker   November 29, 2015

President Obama said that the USA is “a Muslim nation”.

It isn’t. But is he trying to make it so?

We quote from the Washington Examiner:

President Obama’s open-door immigration policy is set to accept more immigrants from Muslim nations over the next five years than the entire population of Washington, D.C., according to federal documents.

Figures from the Department of Homeland Security show that the president has already issued 680,000 green cards to immigrants from Muslim nations over the past five years. Unless Congress changes his policy, that number will be repeated in the next five years.

What’s more, the president is also planning to add over 100,000 more with refugee status, many from Syria. Refugees can also petition the government for their relatives.

DHS data released by the Sen. Jeff Sessions’ Judiciary subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest, noted that refugees, who must apply for a green card within one year, have instant access to federal welfare and entitlements, along with local benefits and education services; these costs are not offset.

The subcommittee said that “assuming no change in visa policy, the U.S. can expect to give green cards to another 680,000 more migrants from these countries over the next five years. A green card entitles recipients to access federal benefits, lifetime residency, work authorization, and a direct route to becoming a U.S. citizen.”

That is a group bigger than Washington, D.C.’s population of 658,893.

And it could grow far more. The Census Bureau suggests that migration from the Middle East is fast growing.

Immigration is one of the most controversial topics in the nation due to Obama’s policies on undocumented children and parents and lately his plan to settle up to 85,000 Syrian refugees. Several governors and the House have caused for a pause on the program due to concerns it will let terrorists pretending to be Syrians into the U.S.

Here are figures for the number of immigrants from Muslim majority countries during the first four years of Obama’s presidency:

Green Card Totals, FY09-FY13:

Pakistan 83,000

Iraq 83,000

Bangladesh 75,000

Iran 73,000

Egypt 45,000

Somalia 31,000

Uzbekistan 24,000

Turkey 22,000

Morocco 22,000

Jordan 20,000

Albania 20,000

Lebanon 16,000

Yemen 16,000

Indonesia 15,000

Syria 14,000

Sudan 13,000

Afghanistan 11,000

Sierra Leone (10K),

Guinea (8K),

Senegal (7K),

Saudi Arabia (7K),

Algeria (7K),

Kazakhstan (7K),

Kuwait (5K),

Gambia (5K),

United Arab Emirates (4K),

Azerbaijan (4K),

Mali (3K),

Burkina Faso (3K),

Kyrgyzstan (3K),

Kosovo (3K),

Mauritania (2K),

Tunisia (2K),

Tajikistan (2K),

Libya (2K),

Turkmenistan (1K),

Qatar (1K),

Chad (1K)

Now let’s compare those numbers with the number of green cards issued to Europeans.

A blog called bruegel collected this information from government sources:

The European Union’s share in worldwide immigration to the US is quite small. In 2013, 54 356 EU nationals received green card status in the US. This represents only 0.01% of the total EU population in 2013 and 5.5% of all green cards issued by the US in that year.  A US green card can be obtained through various means. Most immigrants receive green cards through family members who are US citizens or permanent lawful residents (about 65%). A smaller portion (16% of all green cards issued by the US in 2013) of immigrants receive green cards through their US employers, and this process is known as employment-based immigration. Although small in number, this category of immigrants typically includes exceptionally skilled individuals.

It is important to consider that US employment-based immigration requires US employers to petition on the immigrant employee’s behalf (pay the necessary fees, file the extensive paperwork, and deal with the US immigration system and Department of Labour). This entails that the immigrant employee must be a valuable asset to the employer.

The US reserves about 140 000 green cards each year for employment-based immigration. Preference is given to highly skilled immigrants. Green cards are also reserved, albeit in smaller numbers, for immigrants who establish companies large enough (and with enough funds). These immigrants are able to petition for themselves.

The EU is much better represented in employment-based immigration to the US than in total immigration. This means that the immigrants coming into the US from Europe are more skilled than immigrants coming into the US from other world regions.

In 2013, 18 171 EU immigrants obtained green cards through employment. …  The EU’s share in US employment-based immigration is twice as high as its share in total US immigration.

The United Kingdom is by far the most important source for employment-based immigration from the EU to the US. Almost 6 000 UK nationals obtained green cards through employment in 2013, which was about one-third of all employment-related green cards issued to EU nationals that year and 45% of all green cards issued to UK nationals.

In summary, the emigration of EU citizens to the US is not characterized by overcrowded flights and waiting times. It is, rather, a small and steady flow. Nevertheless, this small flow possesses exceptional skill and education levels … a huge potential for wealth creation that is permanently migrating to the US.

So only 5.5% of all green cards issued by the US in 2013 went to Europeans. 

Why is the flow from Europe small?

It is not because only a few Europeans are applying to immigrate into the US. We personally know professional people in the UK who have been waiting years for their applications to be processed.

Green cards are issued by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The DHS was created after 9/11 – because of 9/11. That needs to be stressed. Because Muslims attacked America and killed nearly 3,000 people, a special government department was created to keep Americans safe from such attacks. And its policy has been to import hundreds of thousands of Muslims into the US.

And the number will soon be in the millions. 

What can be concluded from these facts and figures, but that both President Bush and President Obama have wanted many more (mostly unskilled and dependent) Muslims to become American citizens than (mostly skilled and independent) Europeans.

In the case of President Bush, that silly “compassionate conservatism” of his may be to blame.

In the case of President Obama – could it be that he is doing all he can to Islamize the United States?

Atheists of the Left – “Humanists” some call themselves – often reveal with unconscious irony how close Leftism is to Christianity: the same moral myopia, hubris, and sentimentality.

In order to enjoy the cheap emotional satisfaction of feeling they are “good people”, they go in for this sort of thing.

We quote from the Friendly Atheist at Patheos:

After the Daily Caller News Foundation posted a map of supposed “radical mosques” in the U.S., it wasn’t long before threats were made against them.

But in a wonderful gesture on Monday, the Humanists of the Palouse reached out to the Muslims, sending them a letter of concern and offering whatever help they could:

To our Muslim friends in the Moscow/Pullman area,

Recently, we have been made aware of threats to our community, centered on the Pullman Islamic Center and it and many other Mosques being mis-reported as “radical”. In today’s climate, these threats should not be taken lightly, and we certainly do not. We fully support your right to practice religion free from harm and harassment.

We recognize your members as valued residents of the Palouse. The Humanists of the Palouse want you to know that we will always defend religious freedom and cultural diversity, and threats against these are threats against our very way of life. We stand with you, and offer our support.

If you feel threatened, please do not hesitate to contact us. We would be happy to accompany anyone who feels that their safety is at risk (e.g. grocery shopping, on a walk around town, or just for someone to talk to). If we can advocate for you in any way, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us, and know that you have friends and allies amongst The Humanists of the Palouse.

The Center’s Board of Trustees soon issued this heartfelt response:

The entire Board of Trustees of the Pullman Islamic Association joins me in thanking you and the Humanists of the Palouse generally for this powerful statement affirming civil rights in this country. We are especially moved that a humanist group so completely supports the local Muslim group, since Islam is the most disrespected group in this country. We have noticed that the correct way to define and appreciate humanist groups in general and yours in particular is as lovers and defenders of civil rights, individual and group democratic dignities and freedom of thought, not as haters of religion. Your group’s neighborly defense of freedom of religion in the Palouse demonstrates your focus on freedom and social justice. We are impressed by and thankful for your firm support and offer of assistance and solidarity.

One of our Board of Trustees members is meeting with an FBI agent today, which demonstrates that the federal police are taking this threat seriously. Given this sobering reality of threatened arson and violence your support will always be appreciated by the leaders and membership of the Pullman Islamic Association. We hope we will not need to ask for your offered assistance, but if we do need or want such support, we will indeed reach out to Humanists of the Palouse.

That’s how you do it, friends.

You can disagree on theological issues, but I’d hope local atheist groups around the country would be willing to reach out to Muslims who are actually being persecuted by overzealous conservatives eager to shut them down.

If they lose their religious freedoms, we all do.

Can they possibly not know that sharia law – inseparable from the ideology of Islam – condemns apostasy, which is what atheism is deemed to be? And prescribes death as the punishment for atheists? (Atheist men; women not always.) In some Islamic lands they are imprisoned rather than executed. But all risk their lives, and such freedom as anyone has in a Muslim majority country.

These are reports of atheists, apostates, free thinkers who have been sentenced to prison, and/or flogging, and/or death in Islamic countries recently – the crime of atheism often being euphemized into something else in court. And some who have been killed by their Muslim compatriots.

1. From the Economist, on Alexander Aan in Indonesia:

A MOB attacked Alexander Aan even before an Indonesian court in June jailed him for two and a half years for “inciting religious hatred”.

His crime was to write “God does not exist” on a Facebook group he had founded for atheists in Minang, a province of the world’s most populous Muslim nation. Like most non-believers in Islamic regions, he was brought up as a Muslim. And like many who profess godlessness openly, he has been punished. …

Sharia law, which covers only Muslims unless incorporated into national law, assumes people are born into their parents’ religion. Thus ex-Muslim atheists are guilty of apostasy—a hudud crime against God, like adultery and drinking alcohol. Potential sanctions can be severe: eight states, including Iran, Saudi Arabia, Mauritania and Sudan have the death penalty on their statute books for such offences. …

Most atheists are prosecuted for blasphemy or for inciting hatred. (Atheists born to non-Muslim families are not considered apostates, but they can still be prosecuted for other crimes against religion.) Even in places where laws are lenient, religious authorities and social attitudes can be harsh, with vigilantes inflicting beatings or beheadings.

Many, like Kacem el-Ghazzali, a Moroccan, reckon the only solution is to escape abroad. The 23-year-old was granted asylum in Switzerland after people found out he was the author of an anonymous blog, Atheistica.com. …

Nahla Mahmoud, a 25-year-old Sudanese atheist … fled to Britain in 2010. …

Ibn Warraq, the pseudonymous Indian-born author of “Leaving Islam”, a collection of essays by ex-believers, … lives in exile and has received death threats for campaigning on the behalf of apostates. … Arguments for the death penalty [he says] are usually based on a Hadith, one of the sayings which, along with the Koran, form the basis of Islamic law: “The Prophet said: whoever discards his religion, kill him.” …

Ibn Warraq says that the nub of the problem is that sharia makes atheism the number one sin, ahead of murder.  …

2. From the Guardian, on Ashraf Fayadh in Saudi Arabia:

A Palestinian poet and leading member of Saudi Arabia’s nascent contemporary art scene has been sentenced to death for renouncing Islam.

A Saudi court on Tuesday ordered the execution of Ashraf Fayadh, who has curated art shows in Jeddah and at the Venice Biennale. The poet, who said he did not have legal representation, was given 30 days to appeal against the ruling.

Fayadh, 35, a key member of the British-Saudi art organisation Edge of Arabia, was originally sentenced to four years in prison and 800 lashes by the general court in Abha, a city in the south-west of the ultraconservative kingdom, in May 2014. But after his appeal was dismissed he was retried earlier this month and a new panel of judges ruled that his repentance did not prevent his execution.

3. From Patheos, the Friendly Atheist itself, on Raif Badawi in Saudi Arabia:

December 26, 2013 by Paul Fidalgo [who is admirably scathing in his disgust – ed).

Saudi blogger and religious dissident Raif Badawi has been cruelly punished and toyed with by the Saudi legal system for about a year now, and things have taken a darker turn. According to Badawi’s wife, now living in Lebanon, the high court will try Badawi on the charge of apostasy. If convicted, Badawi could be executed.

This comes after a court opted not to charge him with apostasy in January, but did put him up on charges of “insulting Islam and showing disobedience”. How did they come to this decision? Badawi is the co-founder of a website called the Liberal Saudi Network, which is bad enough, but imagine the horror that washed over Saudi society with this kind of action:

The evidence against him included the fact that he pressed the “Like” button on a Facebook page for Arab Christians.

As a result of this heinous behavior, in July, Badawi was sentenced to 600 lashes and seven years in prison.

Which was horrifying enough. But now it looks like Badawi is being brought up on apostasy charges in earnest. Badawi’s case is one of many being watched by the Office of Public Policy at the Center for Inquiry, where I work, and our Campaign for Free Expression. Browse the cases we have listed there, and you’ll see that, sadly, Badawi’s case is hardly unique.

Cases like this need more international attention, and those who position themselves as “allies” of Saudi Arabia, such as the United States, need to discover their consciences. How can the civilized world refer to itself as such when an ally practices such barbarism, it looks the other way?

The judge in Badawi’s subsequent appeal stiffened the original 2013 sentence – seven years in prison and 600 lashes – to 1000 lashes, ten years in prison and a fine of $266,000. See our post, The punishment of reason, January 12, 2015, where there is an eyewitness description of the first of the series of lashings Badawi is being subjected to.

Badawi had written, “My commitment is… to reject any repression in the name of religion… a goal that we will reach in a peaceful, law-abiding way.”

This was interpreted by the judge as “insulting Islam”.

Badawi’s health is now frail. He is unlikely to survive the lashings.

4. From Poetry Foundation, on Hashem Shaabani in Iran:

We were saddened and horrified today to learn of the death of Hashem Shaabani, who was executed on January 27th by the order of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.

From Radio Free Europe:

An Islamic Revolutionary Tribunal reportedly had sentenced the poet to death, along with 14 others, last July on charges that included “waging war on God”. 

Press reports said Shaabani was hanged after his sentence was approved by President Hassan Rohani.

In a statement on February 5, Freedom House said Shaabani was subjected to severe torture and interrogation during his three years in prison.

Human Rights Voices also reports on the execution, writing:

To those who knew him, was a man of peace and understanding struggling to extend spaces of individual freedom within the despotic Khomeinist system … In one of his letters from prison, made available to use through his family, Shaabani says  … “I have tried to defend the legitimate right that every people in this world should have which is the right to live freely with full civil rights. With all these miseries and tragedies, I have never used a weapon to fight these atrocious crimes except the pen.” 

5. From the Guardian on Avijit Roy and Rafida Bonya Ahmed in Pakistan:

No one could have predicted that the Bangladeshi writer Rafida Bonya Ahmed would make it to London last week. …  In February, Islamist fanatics hacked her husband, Avijit Roy, to death with meat cleavers as the couple left a book fair in Dhaka. They nearly killed Ahmed too: slicing off her thumb and covering her body with wounds. …

Together, Ahmed and Roy ran a secular blog that promoted the writings of young liberal Bangladeshis They wrote on evolution and humanism; they condemned extremism fearlessly, as the title of Roy’s 2014 book The Virus of Faith makes clear. Seeing and fearing a courageous opponent, the enemies of free thought killed him for his ideas. …

6. From a Reuters report on Ananta Bijoy Das and others in Bangladesh:

Third Atheist blogger killed in Bangladesh.

A blogger was hacked to death by machete-wielding attackers in Bangladesh on Tuesday (May 12), the third killing of a critic of religious extremism in the Muslim-majority nation in less than three months.

Ananta Bijoy Das, a blogger who advocated secularism, was attacked by four masked assailants in the northeastern district of Sylhet on Tuesday morning, senior police official Mohammad Rahamatullah told Reuters.

Rahamatullah said Das was a 33-year-old banker.

He was also editor of science magazine “Jukti,” which means “logic,” and on the advisory board of “Mukto Mona” (Free Mind), a website propagating rationalism and opposing fundamentalism …

According to the monitoring service SITE Intelligence Group, Islamist militant group Ansar al-Islam Bangladesh said al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) had claimed responsibility for the attack. …

Imran Sarker, the head of a network of activists and bloggers in Bangladesh, said Das was “a progressive free thinker and a good human being”. …

Militants have targeted secularist writers in Bangladesh in recent years …

On March 30, Washiqur Rahman, another secular blogger who aired his outrage over [Avijit] Roy’s death on social media, was killed in similar fashion on a busy street in the capital, Dhaka.

Their deaths followed the killing in 2013 of Ahmed Rajib Haider, who backed calls to impose the death penalty on Islamist leaders accused of atrocities in Bangladesh’s 1971 war of independence.

Why do our fellow atheists – of the leftist “Humanist” persuasion – not burn with anger against the ideology that persecutes atheism, secularism, rationalism, and shun the company of its devotees?

If they think they are earning the goodwill and tolerance of the Muslims towards whom they’re making this gesture, they’re pathetically deluded. Their nice little letter is not going to change sharia law, or the minds of those who want to impose it on us all.

They seem simply not to believe that the Muslims they contacted might be members of “radicalizing” mosques – which is to say, mosques with imams who urge them to support terrorist groups or join ISIS. There’s no hint that they explored the possibility. In their minds, the accusation must be wholly unjustified.

And one more thing. When those poor persecuted Muslims “in the Moscow/Pullman area” whimpered that “Islam is the most disrespected group in this country”, they are lying. The president of the United States is the son of a Muslim and an Islam lover who has brought Muslim Brotherhood advisers into his administration – and has clearly formed policies on their advice..

At the time of this writing there have been 27,322 deadly attacks carried out by Muslims since 9/11. (See the tally in our margin, taken from The Religion of Peace.) Muslim terrorists do all they can to terrify non-Muslims, and then cynically accuse them of an irrational fear of Islam, calling it “Islamophobia”.

Muslims are the target of few “hate crimes” in the US. But they perpetrate more than any others do.

We quote from an article by David J. Rusin at Islamist Watch. His staistics come from a December 2014 report of 2013 figures. (We await the 2014 report this coming December):

New FBI Hate Crime Stats: Another Blow to Islamist Fictions

There were 1,031 incidents inspired by religion last year, 625 (60.6 percent) of which were anti-Jewish. Anti-Islamic ones constituted just 13.1 percent.

On April 15, 2013, Muslim terrorists murdered three and injured hundreds at the Boston Marathon, prompting familiar warnings about an imminent anti-Muslim backlash. The FBI’s findings are proof that such collective punishment did not materialize — as it almost never does.

How have Islamist groups greeted the FBI data? With silence. It is the sound of disappointment on the part of radicals who need Muslim victims, preferably real ones, to serve as human shields for the Islamist agenda. Bad news for Islamists is once again good news for the rest of us.